Gina

Just had a brief light shower.  A few raindrops on the lens.  Dew heater is on so I'll see if the drops evaporate.

Here come the clouds!

Clouds have gone!  10s exposure, gain 192, gamma 35.  Camera temperature 5°C with cooler on.  Dew heater ON.

Adjusted offset and focus but the field doesn't seem flat.  This could do with improving - if only I could think how!!   Making some progress in other directions though   ie.  Dew heater and camera cooler.  To show the benefit of the cooler I need a dark night - no moon!

Nice red sunset

The USB cable with right-angle USB-B plug that goes into the camera has stopped working and I'm connected with a straight cable so can't fit the case.  So I've put the kit outside just hanging.  Exposure still 1ms and gain at 0.  The offset has moved again.

Now trying the camera cooling.  Currently the camera is showing a temperature of 29.5°C with cooling off.

Later...  Camera temperature 17.1°C but the hot side is only onto the aluminium block without the aluminium tube to conduct heat away to the atmosphere.  It's just slightly warm to the touch whilst the camera body feels cold.  Cooling will be much better with the aluminium pipe.

Offset adjusted.

Shut down, connected camera and started up again.  Here's an image indoors with exposure of 1ms and gain of 0 so the absolute minimum that INDI will go to though admittedly I haven't updated to the latest version of everything which I shall do later.  Offset needs adjusting but I now have grub screws for that.  The lens support now has an oval hole for the camera with M5 tapped holes and grub screws to adjust the offset.  I was glad to see that the ZWO camera driver works for the ASI185MC perfectly.

Connected dew heater and camera cooler to RPi and 13.8v power to buck converter.  RPi light on, checked voltages and all OK.  Ran Terminal and set the RPi running the INDI server then KStars/Ekos on the client machine and started up INDI control and connected the Astroberry Board driver.  Tested the dew heater and camera cooler controls and both worked fine   So I can now assembly things and run those parts of the system together with the imaging.

Soldered wires onto the Hall switch and tested it on a bench PSU.  With the magnet I plan to use, the switch operates at about 8mm when brought in from the front.  I plan for it to come in from the side for better accuracy.  The Hall switch is going on the inside of the top of the casing near the top and the magnet (3mm diameter x 5mm long) will go in a 3mm hole in the cover opposite the pivot.  Hall switch and wiring will be glued to the casing with hot melt glue.

I'll try and pick the bones out of a very long thread about making this clock to post here.  Just the final version, because there were several "blind alleys".  Now to find the original thread...

Made up dew heater resistor string, connected wires (green & orange) to it and to the connector to plug into the HAT.  Also, inserted wires (black & red) from Peltier TEC into connector.  May be able to test the dew heater and camera cooler tomorrow.

Still to do :-

1. Arrange place for Hall switch
2. Add cable and connector to Hall switch device
3. Make up dew heater with cable and connector and attach to lens
4. Test that everything works
5. Assemble everything

Lens has misted up now so I'll bring it all back indoors.  Needs that dew heater!

EDIT... A bit later - brought kit indoors and it's not just the lens that's misted up - the sky is too

Making progress

Moon is up and lighting the clouds but the clouds are showing signs of gaps.  5s exposure. gain on auto and at 172.  Looking forward to when the moon is out of the way and I can get an idea of what this combination of lens and camera is like for dark nights.  Meanwhile I'm continuing work on the electronics...

Connector for Hall switch :-

1. Power
2. Gnd
3. Output

Hall sensor device A3144

Pretty much full cloud cover now.

After total cloud coverage the sky partly cleared and showed some nice red clouds in the setting sum.  Bunged my ASC on it's pole and stuck it out on the guttering and captured an image.  Unfortunately the imaging was set to RAW8 so some posterisation. But yer 'tis anyway.  Captured a second image a bit later having set imaging to RGB24.

These are the Astroberry Board GPIO connections :-

1. #define IN1 RPI_BPLUS_GPIO_J8_29    // GPIOO5   Nano pin 2
2. #define IN2 RPI_BPLUS_GPIO_J8_31    // GPIO06    Dew Heater
3. #define IN3 RPI_BPLUS_GPIO_J8_33    // GPIO13    Camera Cooler

And these are the Arduino Nano connections :-

1. TX1
2. RX0
3. RST
4. Gnd to RPI Gnd
5. D2 Input from RPi GPIO 5
6. D3 Stepper Driver 1
7. D4 Stepper Driver 2
8. D5 Stepper Driver 3
9. D6 Stepper Driver 4
10. D7 Hall Switch

I'll probably power the Nano from the USB connector with 5v from the RPi. 

Looking at the HAT photo, I may use A0 for the Hall switch input as it's next to the Gnd and +5v rails and I could use a 3 pin connector for it.

Been working on the electronics.  Here is a photo of the HAT with most of the components and links.  MOSFETs omitted to show the resistors.

Thank you   Yes, I'm hoping to.

Redesigned and printed a new lens support.  Definitely better   Focused on a distant light.  Focus not perfect but not too bad - I think I'm learning a new skill   The moon is 98% full and about as bright as it gets yet it is possible to see a few of the brighter stars - it was hopeless with the dome!  Mind you a new non-yellow and clear dome should be better than the one I was using.  I can see two red hot pixels and maybe a green one 0 blue ones might not show.  A dark would eliminate those.  I think I can make out about a dozen stars

Here's an image taken with the ASI178MM to show the difference in coverage and the trees that can be cut out of the image without loosing any part of the sky.

Got offset wrong way